


In The Forest Of The Night

by canis_lupus



Series: Tyger, Tyger [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: HP: EWE, M/M, creature!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 14:17:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1188333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canis_lupus/pseuds/canis_lupus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the years after the war, Voldemort's revenge came to light: His death triggered a curse that affects everyone who uses magic. Wizards are slowly beginning to take on creature characteristics, and every spell cast advances the curse for the caster.<br/>Written for the <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/hp_creatures/">hp_creatures</a> <a href="http://hp-creatures.livejournal.com/194188.html">2012 Halloween Fest</a>, Prompt: <a href="http://creaturefestmod.dreamwidth.org/434.html">#10</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Forest Of The Night

Harry's hand hovered above the hilt of his wand at his hip, fingertips just grazing the smooth wood.

“Don't do it,” he told the man cowering against the dirty brick wall of Knockturn Alley. His hair was lank and unwashed, his face flushed and sweaty. The hand that pointed his wand at Harry shook. The whites of his eyes were stark in the dim light of the alley.

“Don't,” Harry said again, stood very still.

He could see the moment the man snapped, the desperation, the capitulation that turned his eyes flat, as that shaking hand twisted, pointed the wooden tip at the man's own throat.

“Av–”

Smooth wood in his fingers, a thought, and the wand sailed away into the darkness, another thought and it flew into Harry's free hand. It was easy. So easy.

The man made a broken, choked sound, and he started crying as Harry marched over, yanked his arms behind his back, looped the leather cord over his wrists.

“No,” he kept saying, and “Please!”, as Harry heaved him to his feet by the scruff of his neck and pushed him forward, towards the light of Diagon Alley.

When Harry marched him out into the sunlight and down towards the exit and the Ministry, people quickly averted their eyes.

He deposited the man in the Ministry holding cells, wrote up his report, and left. The Muggles on the Underground gave him a wide berth as he drove home.

***

He pulled his sunglasses off in the bathroom and studied his reflection. With the grey dusk falling outside, his eyes looked almost normal, almost human. He picked up the lighter and lit the candle next to the sink. Then he watched as his pupils contracted until they were a narrow vertical slit against the green of his irises. Not human at all.

He pulled off his gloves, flexed his fingers and watched the claws extend from the folds at the tips of his fingers, curved and translucent.

He studied his reflection again. Was there less white in his eyes? Was the shape of his face, his ears, his nose the same?

Two spells. It felt as if the magic was creeping through his body, a hot, slow, insidious burn, but he knew that was just his imagination. The curse was painless– otherwise, they would surely have noticed it was happening immediately.

Voldemort's last laugh: a curse on everyone; everyone who had fought him; everyone who had failed him; every human being on the British Isles who used magic. If he was not to rule them, it seemed, he'd decided he would destroy them– destroy their humanity.

Shimmering scales had been creeping into the grimy hairline of the man Harry had arrested. His teeth, all his teeth, had been pointed.

Harry opened his mouth, pulled back his lips. His canines, upper and lower, were a little longer than his other teeth, and a lot more pointy. Yes, he had fangs, too.

At least he didn't have a tail, unlike that poor sod– yet.

Two more spells wouldn't have much of an impact. He knew that. Two spells wouldn't give him a tail, or fur instead of hair, or... the possibilities were endless. No, two spells alone wouldn't. The problem was how often he found himself in a position where he needed to cast those two more spells.

He thought again of quitting. A lot of the Aurors already had– it was one of those professions where you had to use a lot of magic of necessity. But... Harry firmed his jaw. No, he wouldn't. He wouldn't capitulate to Voldemort, not even in this, not even after the bastard was dead and gone.

He flashed his fangs again at his reflection, and walked out of the bathroom, to find Kreacher and dinner.

So he would continue to use magic– would continue to change. At least he knew how to live his life outside of work without magic. The pure-bloods, they were the ones hit hardest by the curse. They didn't know how to exist without magic, and yet they were the ones most abhorred to be developing animal features. A lot of the Muggleborns, those who hadn't changed at all or not in any obvious way when the Wizarding world had realized that it was magic itself that was changing them, had already left, had gone back to their Muggle existences. The pure-bloods had no such option. They were the last to believe the changes were related to amount of magic use, and so those changed the soonest, the farthest. Even if they could still pass for human, they had no idea how to exist in the Muggle world, and they were too proud to learn.

What was left was a Wizarding world reluctant to do magic, a Wizarding world that didn't know itself anymore, that turned their heads in disgust at the animalistic features of their members, of their reflections, a Wizarding world that couldn't work without magic and couldn't work with magic.

It was a Wizarding world where Harry had to arrest the changing, the desperate, before they harmed themselves or others.

***

“Harry!” Hermione exclaimed with delight and wrapped him in a hug when he walked into the back room of the Leaky. Harry felt a smile on his face as he hugged her back tightly, her warm body pressed against his, her hair tickling the side of his face. He could've stayed like that for a while, but instead he chuckled and let her go.

“You'd think you hadn't seen me in ages from the way you're acting,” he teased her, and she scowled at him and smacked his arm playfully.

“Shush, you! I can be happy to see my best friend if I want to!”

“You certainly can,” he allowed and smiled at her.

She smiled back, then raised her eyebrows. “Still with the sunglasses,” she remarked.

“Hey, I had to take the Underground to get here,” Harry pointed out.

“Well, yes, but you could take them off _now_.”

Harry shrugged and tried to make it look casual. “Later.”

Hermione rolled her eyes at him, then hooked an arm through his and dragged him further into the room. “As you want. C'mon, help me set up the chairs.”

So they took chairs from the stacks in the corner and set them up in a circle, and Harry tacked up some paper on the Muggle whiteboard they wheeled from its place next to the chairs.

More people drifted in as the time neared half past seven, all of them regulars. Greetings were called through the room, and Harry felt himself relax further.

When Hermione had decided that it was time to set up a self-help and support group for those affected by the Curse (so, technically, _everyone_ ) he'd been appalled, for various reasons. For one, it had felt like giving up. Two years the Department of Mysteries had tried to break the curse, had pulled every resource, followed every lead, consulted every curse breaker and spell specialist and had even issued a blanket pardon over possession of any Dark Arts texts if their owners would only allow them to be consulted and searched for any useful bit of information on the Curse. Two years, and they had established that yes, it had originated from Voldemort, yes, it affected every witch and wizard on the British Isles at the moment of his death, yes, it was progressive through use of magic. Two years, and they hadn't found a single hint of a way to break it, or to reverse the transformations, or to stop its advance.

Having a support group... wasn't that admitting that they wouldn't find a way to break it? Wasn't that accepting this, _this_ , as their new reality?

And, also, Harry didn't like the prospect of talking about his feelings with strangers. He'd never been comfortable exposing his weaknesses, a lesson too well learned in a formative decade at the Dursleys, reinforced by avid reporters and tabloid-style articles.

Hermione, of course, wiped all his concerns off the table with ruthless practicality. Whether the Curse could eventually be broken or not, this was their reality, right now, so they had to deal with it, didn't they? And while anonymity wouldn't be an option at the meetings, the Wizarding world was just too small for that, any reporter who dared take advantage of this offer would wish they had never crossed Hermione Granger-Weasley– she was an Unspeakable, after all.

So Harry went to group, and Ron, too, because Hermione said so. And it was awkward at first, but... Harry looked around the room, worn floorboards a warm brown in the light of the lanterns and two stands of candles, circle of chairs familiar, atmosphere personable, familiar, almost festive as people greeted each other and joked and shook hands or hugged.

Hermione had been right, as per usual. This was what the Wizarding world needed.

And they weren't just here to talk about their feelings, though that was a big part of it. _Face The Change_ was as much about discussing the Curse and its properties, research, exchanged experiences and collecting data as it was about everyone's daily struggle with it.

“Oi, mate!” Ron's voice sounded from the door, and Harry stepped over to accept a slap to the back and punch Ron's arm in return.

“Oi yourself, mate. How's the little one?”

Ron grinned, broadly. “Little terror, she is! You would not believe the fight I had, getting her into bed tonight! Dark wizards have nothing on little girls, I'm telling you, mate.”

Harry chuckled. “I grew up with her mother, too, you might recall. I believe you!”

Ron puffed up a little, beaming with pride. “Oh, yeah, she'll be as fierce as Hermione ever was!”

Harry laughed outright. The longer they were married, the more smitten his best friends seemed to become with each other. Harry'd be envious, if it weren't so cute.

“Excuse me,” said a voice next to him, crisp and cultured.

“Oh, sorry,” Harry said automatically as he realized he was blocking the door. He stepped aside and turned at the same time– then blinked and stared at Draco Malfoy, who was standing in the door.

His robes were metal-grey, smooth and sleek and pressed, he held himself straight as a ruler, his mouth set in a tight line. His hair was still white-blond, his features still sharp, and he was still a good few inches taller than Harry. He wasn't sneering, though. In fact, if Harry wasn't very much mistaken, he looked a little apprehensive. Also, he smelled good, of something cool and sweet and fresh.

He also looked entirely human.

Harry realized he was being very rude, and Malfoy might at any moment take offence, considering. He also realized he'd rather not restart their schoolboy enmity. So he rallied, and inclined his head, and hoped he looked polite.

“Malfoy,” he acknowledged.

“Potter,” Malfoy replied with no inflection whatsoever, then cast a look around the room, without showing any sign of actually stepping inside.

“Come on in,” Harry invited and took another step away from the door, and Malfoy's personal space. He knew the feeling, after all. He hadn't been too eager to step into this room the first time, either, and so had many others.

Malfoy shot him a look, part doubtful and part amused. “Are you quite sure you want to invite me, Potter?” he drawled.

Harry raised his eyebrows and motioned with his head at the banner stretched under the ceiling across the front of the room. “As it says up there: Everyone is welcome. And we do mean everyone.”

“Okay!” Hermione called from the front of the room. “Are we all here? Let's get started!”

For a moment, Malfoy looked like he would bolt, and so Harry tilted his head again.

“Well, come in, then, Malfoy,” Ron's voice came from behind Harry. “You don't want to keep Hermione waiting.”

Malfoy blinked, his eyes cutting over Harry's shoulder. Then he took a slow step into the room.

“What's keeping you two over there?” Hermione called and Harry turned to see her crane her neck to look around them. “Oh, a new arrival. Welcome, come in, come in!”

Harry looked back at Malfoy, to find his eyebrows high and expression sceptical, but he did start to walk into the room. Not that he had much choice, as pretty much everyone was now turning to see who the newcomer was. It was walk in or flee, and it seemed Malfoy's dignity won out over his apprehension.

Hermione also blinked in surprise when she realized who had joined them this evening, but she only waved at a chair. “Have a seat. You, too, boys, we want to get started.”

Harry and Ron exchanged a look, rolled their eyes, grinned at each other, and followed Malfoy across the room to the chairs. Ron greeted Hermione with a kiss to the cheek and took the chair next to the one she was standing in front of, and Harry dropped himself into a free seat between two other group members, about a quarter around the circle.

Antonia, a pretty black-haired girl a few years younger than them, smiled at Malfoy and indicated the empty chair next to her. Malfoy inclined his head and sat stiffly. His face was blank, but his body language betrayed his discomfort.

That was nothing unusual for people who attended the first time, and most of them had felt similar. So they did Malfoy the favour of ignoring his presence, and everyone turned their attention to Hermione.

***

Draco couldn't help the way his eyes skipped around the room, from person to person, as Granger wished them a good evening. He felt dreadfully exposed, sitting in a circle like that. There was no table to hide his hands under, no way to shift his weight in a way that couldn't be seen by anyone who happened to look in his direction. His shoulders and legs were bare inches away from touching those of his neighbours. He couldn't fade into the background.

That was, possibly, quite intentional, he thought as he considered the other witches and wizards in the room with him.

There was a corpulent witch directly across from him whose mouth and nose was clearly morphing into the pointy features of a mouse or rat – a full set of whiskers already sprouted from under her upturned nose and her upper lip showed just the hint of a cleft. An elderly wizard to her left had grey, bristly hair sprouting down the sides of his face, which maybe could've been mistaken as a beard, but his eyes were solid brown, their shape oddly rounded, definitely not human. Weasley's face was striped like a tiger's in big, black lines, and Granger's ears were pointed, he saw when she brushed away a strand of bushy hair, pointed and furred, with a tuft of hair on top. Potter... Potter was enigmatic in black. He seemed human enough, but his eyes were hidden behind those black Muggle glasses, his body covered with a long-sleeved turtle neck sweater, trousers and boots. On his hands he wore black leather gloves.

Of course, he wasn't the only one obviously covering his change. There were hats, scarves, oddly voluminous robes and such around the circle, and he had no doubt that there were also those wearing Muggle make-up or other means of concealment. He shifted his weight slightly, tried to ease the pain in his back and shoulders a little.

He wasn't sure why he was here. Or rather, he knew why he was here, he just wasn't sure whether this was a good idea. Merlin knew, all his friends and acquaintances had nothing but scorn for Granger's “Muggle nonsense”, as his mother liked to refer to it.

Like Squib births or unfortunate Muggle blood in the family, well-bred witches and wizards preferred not to talk about the fact that they were all being twisted into a perverted mix of human and beast. Surely a solution would be found soon, they were _witches_ and _wizards_ after all, and then they could go back to a normal existence. It wasn't like they were _Muggles_ , low, helpless little creatures in the face of even the most elementary of natural forces. They had magic, and centuries of knowledge, to change the world to their liking and convenience.

Draco was neither blind nor stupid. Oh, he would never admit it, but he was aware that he'd been both, that he'd cut anything but a dashing figure during the war. He hadn't ever _thought_ about anything of importance when he was a child, he'd never questioned any of the teachings handed down to him from his father. He'd believed, and reacted, he'd obeyed and he'd run away, in his mind if not in body, but he'd never _thought_ , not until it all came crashing down around his ears, not until his father was condemned as a criminal in front of the whole world, not until it took _Harry friggin' Potter_ 's testimony to save him from the same fate.

So when his magic, the thing that defined him more than name or money, turned on him, when his betrothal fell through, when his life came down around his ears once again, he started to question.

There was no solution in sight. Wishing for it didn't make it so. Not talking about it didn't make the Curse any less real, looking away from other wizard's faces didn't erase the inhuman features on them. Avoiding his own image in the mirror didn't negate the changes in his own body. Resenting the fact that the Muggleborns were better equipped to deal with the Curse than the pure-bloods didn't change it.

Draco felt helpless. The one thing he had always believed in more than anything else had betrayed him. He didn't know how to live without magic. He didn't know what to do, what to feel, how to cope. He needed help.

There was no help to be had in his usual circles. When he'd seen the half-page add in the _Prophet_ for the first time, he'd been reluctantly interested, and the weeks and months went by with no news on another solution. So, he'd made up his mind and come tonight.

It was stranger than he'd expected to sit once more in a room with Potter, Granger and Weasley. He had truly not been certain of his welcome. He was, after all, still an ex-Death Eater, Potter's defence of him in front of the Wizengamot not withstanding.

He'd also somehow forgotten how short Potter was– so much so that he hadn't even realized it was Potter he was talking to until the man turned around to pause and look at him, expression impossible to read behind the reflective sheen of those dark glasses.

They'd invited him inside, though, all three of them, and no one seemed inclined to make him feel uncomfortable. It was an... odd experience.

He tried to relax a little, settle his shoulders that were stiff with tension and pain. He wasn't very successful.

“A few announcements before we start,” Granger said, and Draco forced his attention back to her.

She went on to detail an excursion to Muggle London to learn about Muggle means of transport in a few weeks time, and an introduction to Muggle money by Potter in connection with it. She also said she would put up a sign-up sheet after this night's session for a continuation of 'Every-Day Life Without Magic' classes, where anyone could sign-up, suggest topics or offer to teach.

Draco was torn between reflexive scorn and the sour realisation that he could really use help with all of that. Humiliation churned in his stomach, and he could only hope that he managed to preserve a neutral expression, that it wasn't obvious that his lips wanted to press together and his cheeks wanted to burn.

Once Granger had made her announcements and insured there were no questions, she sat back a little in her chair, brushed that strand of hair back behind her ear, and smiled.

“Okay, let's get started. I'll go first today, if you don't mind.” No one did, so she continued, folding her hands in her lap, looking down at them briefly before she swept her eyes around the circle again, and started.

She spoke, of all things, about teeth. Draco didn't know what he had expected, but it hadn't been to hear about fears this silly– this private. As she was afflicted with squirrel features, Granger worried that her teeth would start to permanently grow... like they had when he hexed her in second year. To her credit, she didn't mention any names when she related the incident, she didn't even look in his direction.

The other members of the circle didn't seem to find anything unusual or silly about Granger's fears. They were listening, nodding thoughtfully or merely watching her, and the woman with the mouse features voiced her sympathy out loud.

Granger handed off to Weasley, who, in contrast to his wife, related his concerns about his daughter, more serious and adult than Draco had ever thought the man capable of. When would the Change affect her, Weasley wondered. Would it start as soon as she manifested accidental magic, or would it only be activated when she received her first wand? Would she still be able to learn magic at Hogwarts? At the moment, Draco knew, the school was closed, awaiting a decision on how to cope with the Curse. Weasley wanted his daughter to grow up with magic, and for the first time, Draco could see him as a fellow pure-blood wizard.

Others voiced their concerns as the session moved around the circle, and the trivial seemed as welcome a contribution as that of consequence. To his relief, not everyone spoke. Some just passed the conversation on with a slight shake of their head or a wave of their hand.

Then it was Potter's turn, and he didn't wave it on. For some reason, Draco had expected he would. Maybe because he certainly didn't look entirely comfortable, slouched back in his chair, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his chest. It was the posture of someone attempting to look casual and feeling defensive.

But he sighed, sat up, stared at his hands for a moment, and then pulled off the dark glasses with one gloved hand. Draco saw him blink in the light, saw his pupils contract– and contract, until they were a nothing but a dark vertical slit. Non-human. Next he removed his gloves, tugged methodically on each finger until he could pull his hands free. He laid the gloves across his lap, rested his hands splayed on his thighs. Draco saw immediately what he was hiding. His fingertips were... odd. There was nothing but soft, pink skin on top of them. An involuntary shiver worked itself down Draco's spine, as if he were looking at an injury, as if there were open wounds where Potter's fingernails should have been. Instead, there was a slit, a fold of skin at the tip of each finger and as Potter lifted his hands and flexed them thoughtfully, pale, sickle-shaped claws emerged. He relaxed his fingers again, laid them back down on his thighs, and they vanished again.

Then he looked up, swept his eyes around the circle, and for a moment, they met Draco's, a feral green stare from between Potter's long black fringe.

For some reason, Draco found, he'd assumed Potter wouldn't be affected by the Change. For some reason he'd thought the golden Gryffindor hero would remain unsullied by that which corrupted everyone else.

“Magic saved me,” Potter said, quietly. “I'm an Auror. I have a respected, well-paid job. I have gold in my vault, I live in a house that belongs to me, I'm a productive member of society. I have friends. I have a place here. Magic gave me that. Sometimes I arrest someone, someone miserable and desperate, and I look at them and I think: That could be me.

If my Hogwarts letter hadn't come that day, what would I have? A third-rate education from a state school, if that. I doubt I would've had the sort of perfect grades that you need to compensate for that. I probably would've been bullied at school. Between that and my home situation, maybe I would've run away.” A quick, wry smile flickered across his lips. “I _probably_ would've run away. And then? Now that I'm an Auror, I've seen what happens. It's no different in the Muggle world– living on the streets, begging, stealing. Drugs. Prostitution. Violence, abuse, prison. A vicious circle.” He shrugged. “Maybe I would've gotten lucky. Maybe an adult would've taken it upon themselves to protect me, maybe I would've found friends, maybe I would've pulled through. But the odds would've been against me.

Magic saved me from all that. And now it's betrayed me.” His eyes blazed, his fingers flexed, claws dug into the fabric stretched tight over his legs. “ _He_ made it betray me. And I think about quitting every day, but I won't. I _won't_.”

***

It was that which stayed most vividly with Draco after he was back home: That sentiment, that echo of his own thoughts, his own feelings. Magic had betrayed them. It was... disconcerting to have it spoken aloud by Potter of all people.

_Potter_ was disconcerting, come to think of it. He wasn't what Draco had expected him to be, and Draco hadn't even been aware that he'd expected him to be like anything. If asked, Draco would've said that he'd barely spared a thought for the man in the years since he hadn't had to face him every day. Certainly, it was impossible to escape him all the way. The man was famous, after all, and the papers were far too prone to gush over his every minor achievement. Still... Draco had not been aware that he'd expended a lot of time or energy thinking about his old school rival.

On some level, though, he must have. How else could he explain his surprise as reality clashed with his mental image of Potter?

Potter, in his mind, had been larger and more imposing than the man he had met this evening, and yet... had his hair been always that black, that wild, his eyes always that green? Had he always moved with such purpose? Potter was intense, vibrant, and when had Draco forgotten that about him?

And Potter was Changed, was cursed just like everyone else, and was hiding it– like most everyone else. If Draco had, for some reason, thought about Potter Changed, he realized, he would've thought Potter would display it, would be all high-and-mighty Gryffindor, would wear it like battle scars.

For just a moment he had a flash of what Potter might look like, head high and proud, Change bared to the world, challenging all comers, bestial eyes blazing.

But, no, tonight's Potter had not been a heroic statue, had not been a symbol of righteousness and disproportionate pride. Tonight's Potter had been short, and polite, and uncomfortable, and... human. Yes, Draco was aware of the irony.

Nor did he know what to make of the rest of what Potter had shared. Potter was as far from the poor, the criminal underworld, the dregs of society as it was possible to be. That he would ever have been in danger of being part of that seemed utterly ludicrous. Yet... he would hardly have lied in front of his friends like that, and he had been far too vague to be exaggerating his tragic circumstances in a bid for pity. He hadn't even mentioned his dead parents, or his defeat of the Dark Lord, except in the most circumspect terms.

Draco lay awake a long time that night trying to assimilate the facts of a Granger who admitted that she didn't know everything, a Ron Weasley as a worried father, a humble Harry Potter.

***

Malfoy kept coming to group. When he showed up for the second time the week after, Harry was almost more surprised than the first time. But he kept coming, never late and never early, for two weeks, then three, then four, and hardly before Harry knew, Malfoy had become one of the regulars. He never spoke in group, never shared and never commented on what anyone else shared either, but he sat in the circle, ramrod straight and uncomfortable. His expression was always guarded, his lips tight, his head up and his shoulders back. He was always impeccably dressed, never the same set of robes twice, and always in grey, metal grey and dove grey and charcoal grey that was almost black. He was sleek and aloof, and only the visible tension in his tall frame, the discomfort nestled in the tight corners of his eyes prevented him from appearing as arrogant, kept Harry from feeling resentment at this intrusion into one of the few spaces where he himself allowed himself to let his guard down.

Most people relaxed after they'd been to a few sessions, recognized this as a safe place and started to open up. Not Malfoy. He never relaxed, not for a second. He never leaned back in his chair, he never slouched against a wall. He never revealed his own Change. It was almost impossible that he wouldn't have one. He was a pure-blood, and why else would he be there?

He never gave a sign of what it might be that he was hiding. But in his second month, he came to Harry's introduction to Muggle currency and the London Underground, smartly dressed in a grey suit and a trench coat, as uncomfortable as ever but without a single derisive comment, and soon after he started to show up for more of their classes, learned everything from cooking to sharpening your quill without a spell.

“Don't you have house elves for that?” Harry asked him as they were dicing tomatoes next to each other, pointing with his chin at the salad ingredients spread across several tables.

Malfoy tilted his head a fraction and regarded him for a moment out of one slate-grey eye.

“I might not always,” he answered finally.

His tone was heavy with unspoken words, but Harry found he understood only too well: If magic could turn on them, who knew what else might happen?

They shared that moment of understanding, then turned back to their tomatoes as one. Harry felt an odd little tingle somewhere in the centre of his body. He wasn't supposed to be sharing those sorts of moments with Draco Malfoy, he was sure, and he couldn't tell if the fact that it had happened made him uncomfortable or... something else.

And it kept happening. They would sit in group, in the circle, and someone would say something, and he would happen to glance at Malfoy, and Malfoy would happen to glance at him, and their eyes would meet across the empty space between them. Harry would walk into the room, and Malfoy would incline his head, and Harry would realize he'd nodded a greeting to him.

As weeks turned into months and the leaves turned and the fogs wreathed London Malfoy still didn't share in group, but he did start to stay around afterwards to mingle a little and he started to help out with teaching, passing on the things _he_ 'd learned just a little while ago.

Working with him, it was for the first time that Harry realized Malfoy was _smart_. He rarely needed anything explained a second time, and he had an incisive mind behind that expressionless face. He liked to strip any lesson, any topic, down until he reached the very smallest core of it. He listened to Harry's explanation on Muggle money, and asked “So it's all multiples of ten?” He saw Harry use a lighter once to light a candle, picked it up, regarded it, turned it around twice, and clicked it as expertly as any Muggle smoker.

And Harry was surprised by this. He'd gone to school with Malfoy for six years, shared classes most every day– how had he not known this about his old rival?

Of course, the Malfoy he remembered from school seemed to have less and less to do with the man he sat in a circle with once a week. There was no swagger, no sneering comments, no petty cruelty. Maturity, Harry thought with a wry smile to himself, suited Draco Malfoy. It made him a real person instead of a school-yard bully card-board cut-out, it made him more... human.

***

Draco knew himself well enough to know he was in trouble as he leaned against the refreshment table one evening after group and watched Potter laugh and chat with Granger and Weasley. He took a sip of tea and nibbled on a home-baked biscuit courtesy of Geraldine, the woman with the mouse features. It was the last week of September, and Draco was lingering in the warmth and candlelight of the meeting room after group.

And he was watching Potter, again. He kept doing that, catching his eye, picking work stations next to him, watching his hands as he played with Muggle gadgets.

Oh, yes, Draco knew himself well enough to recognize attraction when he felt it. Of course, the Wizarding world's heterosexual boy-hero was about the most foolish target he could have chosen.

And then Potter said to Weasley, quite clearly: “Stop trying to set me up with your brother, Ron,” and Draco almost spilled his tea down his front. Surely he had misheard that?

But then Weasley said: “We're just a little worried about you, yeah? You haven't dated anyone since you broke up with that asshole Smith ages ago. All you ever do is work. We just want you to be happy.”

Potter crossed his arms, chin jutting forward, looking extraordinarily stubborn and defensive. “I'm _fine_.”

Draco gripped his mug firmly, for the first time glad it was sturdy stone-ware instead of his mother's whisper-thin bone china.

Surely not. No. No, there was absolutely no reason for his stomach to twist the way it was doing, no reason for his breath to speed up, no reason for his mouth to flood with saliva, and most certainly no reason for his mind to leap and churn and conjure up possibilities.

He would not act on this. That way lay disaster, pure and simple. For six years he'd gone to school with Potter, and for six years they'd carried on a feud. That was not a good basis to start any sort of relationship on, even if they'd managed a few months of civility now. The fact that he saw Potter in quite a new light after the bits and pieces he'd been given when Potter decided to speak in group did not change that. He was an ex-Death Eater, and while the Wizarding world was preoccupied with the Curse, certainly no one had forgotten. Draco's position was precarious enough as it was. There was no need to add a failed relationship with the Boy Who Lived to it, and there was no reason to risk turning the man back into an enemy now that he had more influence than ever.

Draco was resolved. He could not stop being attracted to Potter. He might not be able to forget having learned that Potter's sexual orientation might not be so conventional, after all. He could certainly choose not to act on any of that.

***

Then the first week of October came, and with it, news that made the matter of Draco's potential love life or lack thereof seem rather trivial. Granger told them before it made it into the papers.

“We've exhausted every conceivable resource,” Granger said solemnly at the end of the session, the time usually devoted to discussing the Curse and its effects in more technical terms. “We've studied it, we've read every text we could get our hands on. Frankly, we're out of ideas. The Curse can't be broken.”

Draco felt like he'd taken a Granian's hoof to the chest.

Granger held up her hands. “That doesn't mean that it won't _ever_ be broken. We might find some new information, make new discoveries, something. The Department of Mysteries will keep working on it. But it won't be broken any time soon, so for the time being, we'll have to learn to live with it. And in regards to that, I believe we need to take the next step. We need to push for more acceptance.”

“How do you want to do that?” Potter asked, and he sounded wary.

“A Halloween ball, for starters. One where we don't hide any of our Changes.”

The reaction to this idea was decidedly luke-warm. Draco didn't contribute much to the discussion, apart from affirming that no, he wouldn't be going if displaying the Change was mandatory for this ball. Granger gave him sad, pitying eyes, but Draco merely raised an eyebrow to ask whether she really thought that would work on him. Her lips twitched in a reluctant smile, and she turned her persuasive powers onto her next victim– Potter.

Draco did understand her reasoning. He even agreed with it. If they really did have to live with the Curse for the foreseeable future, they, everyone, would have to come to terms with it. Shunning it as most had done for the past two years was not an option if they faced decades of it. Still, Draco was not ready for this. The notion that this Curse was something he would have to deal with for the rest of his life– it was not a complete surprise. Everyone's hopes had been dwindling as time passed and there was no breakthrough. Yet it was difficult to have the last of that hope crushed, and he wasn't ready to face that yet. He certainly wasn't ready to display his own personal freakishness to the world.

He stepped up to where Potter was leaning against the wall after the meeting. Potter tilted his head to give him a questioning look. His sunglasses were tucked into the collar of his shirt and his eyes were very green. Draco handed him the second cup of tea he was carrying. Potter blinked in surprise, but accepted it with a nod of thanks and took a sip, then looked into his cup.

“Quite a lot of honey, no milk, isn't that how you like it?” Draco asked. Potter looked up at him again, something measuring in his gaze.

“It is,” he replied and took another sip without breaking the eye contact. Draco was the one who turned his head, casually, he hoped, and nodded towards Granger.

“Are you going?”

Potter snorted. “What do you think?”

“You don't want to, but you're going to let Granger bully you into it,” Draco answered, and couldn't help a small smirk. Potter rewarded him with a wry chuckle.

“Yeah, that about sums it up.”

They drank the rest of their tea in silence. It was comfortable.

***

The rest of the week brought more bad news. The Ministry had decided that Hogwarts was to stay closed indefinitely. After all, how could you expect anyone to perform magic constantly to teach it to the children? And on Friday, the Prophet ran an article confirming that children were affected, as well. A six-year-old girl in Ireland had developed an unspecified Change after she'd had a large bout of accidental magic.

Draco set the paper down next to his breakfast plate and realized his hands shook with the finest of tremors.

Accidental magic set the Curse in motion. That meant no one would be spared. By the time they reached an age where they could learn conscious control of their magic, all but the very weakest of magical children would already be Changed. And they could not learn conscious control without _doing_ magic. Without conscious control, accidental magic would keep happening in times of stress– something which never ended well, if history served. They were, literally, cursed which ever way they turned.

There was a sliver of a chance that children born, or maybe conceived, after Voldemort's death would be free of the Curse. If it was bound to the moment of his death, then this... travesty would only affect one generation. It would be a consolation if this were a temporary phenomenon.

They wouldn't know for another several years. But this news, that children who hadn't yet come into their magic at the time of the Dark Lord's demise were subject to the Curse– it made Draco fear that his revenge had indeed destroyed the Wizarding world he couldn't conquer. The Dark Lord had been vengeful. It would be just his style.

He had a meeting that afternoon, more Muggle cooking classes. He took his place next to Potter at the table that had become their regular one.

“Hey, Draco,” Potter said, voice subdued and eyes resigned.

“Harry,” Draco returned, and was so distracted by his urge to reach out and offer him a touch of comfort that it took until several moments later before he realized that Potter had just addressed him by his given name. And he'd answered in kind.

He felt... odd, today, around Potter. He watched Potter's gloved hands as he took notes, as he tapped his thumb against his lips in thought. He watched his tongue dart out to wet those lips. Potter had a very attractive mouth. Draco's eyes lingered on the curve of his lips in profile, then on the straight slope of his nose, the decisive sweep of his eyebrows visible between the messy black strands of his fringe, the thick smudge of his eyelashes.

Draco wanted to kiss him. He wanted to push his fingers into that thick mop of hair and see whether he couldn't smooth it down some. He wanted Potter, rather badly.

It was becoming more difficult to convince himself that the risk wasn't worth it. After all, the world was not what it had been. Draco would not marry a pure-blood witch to sire an heir to the Malfoy name. His child would not grow up a pure-blood, would not attend Hogwarts, would not walk those halls certain in his or her inheritance, certain in blood and magic.

No, pure-blood that he was, Draco's humanity had already run through his fingers, fleeting in a way he had never realized it could be. And, it seemed, it would not be returned to him any time soon. Nor would he be able to find a pure-blood witch free of the Change as a wife– those who were, those from the continent or abroad, would hardly consent to marry him, tainted as he was. As for any children he might have– there was nothing certain about the shape of the world they might grow up in.

This was not the first time Draco had faced uncertainty about the future, and yet... Before, he had always had a vision of how it might look: The glorious, perfect world of pure-blood supremacy his father had painted for him as a child, a return to the golden days of the past when the world was thick with life and magic before the Muggles had started to spread across it like locusts, devouring every resource they could get their hands on, destroying everything that did not serve them, everything unique and magical and wild, leaving behind them a dead, beaten-down wasteland.

Needless to say, he had been cured of that vision, of the notion that the Dark Lord could give them a world full of life and beauty. No, the Dark Lord's vision was full of darkness and pain, servitude and suffering and death. Still, as he sat shaking at the dinner table with the monster, as he lay in his bed and attempted not to cry, he feared the future, but he knew the shape of what he feared. And as he ran and cringed and fought his way through the war, a traitorous vision grew in his mind, one where Potter returned the world to the way it had been, not a shining utopia but blessed, plain ordinariness, the imperfect every-day world of his childhood.

It seemed like an impossible dream during the war, that things could ever return to normal, to peace, that the Dark Lord could be stopped a second time. And yet it came true, an unlikely, preposterous miracle performed by a skinny seventeen-year-old boy, and after the hysteria and the trials and the celebrations Draco took a careful breath, and relaxed a little, and thought he knew the world again.

And then the miracle turned to ash in his mouth. It was somehow worse, he thought, that they had had those few months where everything seemed to return to normal, where everyone dared to feel safe again.

Was it any wonder people were trying so hard to pretend the Curse wasn't happening, not to them, not to everyone, everywhere? Was it any wonder that their usually cheerful cooking class was quiet today, subdued, everyone as lost in thought as Draco himself was?

Draco did not want to think about the impact the news were having on the rest of the witches and wizards on the British Isles. They, here, in this room, were the ones most open about the Change, most accepting of it. That did not mean they weren't angry, or helpless, or frustrated. But they were the ones facing it, actively. It was strange, Draco found, to be part of that, to consider himself part of a group he had grown to respect. Yet they were only a few, compared to the many, many people across the Isles who would wrestle with their despair on their own.

Yes, there were difficult, challenging times ahead, and for the first time Draco realized that he had no idea what the future would look like– that he had never known what the future would look like, and that he never would. For the first time, he realized how very fragile everything around him was, every belief and every assumption, every expectation and every everyday matter.

The world could change in the blink of an eye.

He looked to the side, at Potter, again.

Nothing was certain. Most of the control he thought he had over his own life was an illusion, and what was true today might be false tomorrow.

And with that in mind– was it really worth denying himself what he longed for, denying what he _was_? If safety was an illusion– then what was the point in not taking a risk?

***

Draco stepped outside in the evening to find Potter standing in front of the pub, breath steaming slightly in the first chill of autumn. He had his gloved hands in the pockets of his Muggle jeans, his black leather-jacket open to reveal a delicate sweep of collarbone and the dip at the base of his throat, bared as his head was tilted far back, staring up to the stars.

Draco looked upwards himself, to the thick diamond dust spattered across a velvety-black night sky. They were invisible on the other side of the wall, he knew now, the Muggle side, where the night sky over London was nothing but orange glow. But here, the magic of Diagon Alley still held sway, and the light pollution of the buzzing Muggle metropolis around them did not exist.

Draco stepped up to Potter, who didn't acknowledge him, although Draco had no doubt he was aware of his presence.

Draco studied him for a moment more, the faintest of luminescence in his eyes in the dim light, that perfect, inviting bow of his lips, the lack of tension in his stance despite Draco's proximity, the expression on his upturned face.

He looked... lonely.

Draco leaned in and kissed him.

***

Draco's kiss felt wonderful. Unexpected, but wonderful. His lips were a little cool from the night air at the very first moment, and soft and dry, and then they stayed in contact with Harry's a moment longer and warmth spread between them. Harry's eyes slid shut, and his lips parted for more, for closer.

Of course he'd started to notice Draco these last few weeks, but surely the tension he meant to feel between them wasn't mutual, was all in his head.

Well. Apparently not.

Draco pressed close, tall, shoulders solid under the arms Harry must've wrapped around them at some point, his hands large and warm on Harry's hips. Harry had to stretch, to lean up to reach, but he didn't mind, he didn't mind at all, not with Draco's tongue sliding into his mouth, curling over one fang, then the other, exploring, retreating, pushing back in, demanding.

A wave of heat travelled through Harry's body, burned in his cheeks and the tips of his ears, pooled in his chest and coiled in his groin. There were probably a million reasons why kissing Draco Malfoy back enthusiastically was a bad idea, but Harry couldn't think of a single one just at the moment.

Finally, Draco pulled back slowly and their eyes met, his hands still on Harry's hips, Harry's still on his shoulders.

“Uh...” Harry said and stared up at him. “Want to come to dinner tomorrow?” Oh, God, he'd just asked Draco Malfoy on a date.

“Yes,” Draco said, then blinked and looked vaguely surprised.

“Great!” Harry exclaimed and took half a step back, letting go of Draco's shoulders as Draco let go of his hips. “Eight o'clock? Floo address is 12 Grimmauld Place.”

Draco nodded his agreement, and Harry grinned nervously, waved, and walked away briskly.

Yes, he was running away. But his heart beat like a rabbit's, and his breath still came fast, and he felt the need for a bit of time alone to wrap his head around what had just happened.


End file.
